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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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Proposals for a democratic, sustainable,
cohesive and competitive Economic and
Monetary Union
In order to deliver fundamental treaty goals, the
EMU needs to reform its architecture and its sys-
tem of governance in the following way:
A democratic offensive
A stronger European and national democratic
dimension is indispensable to secure robust po-
litical legitimacy of EMU policy-making. The cur-
rent decision-making approach is not viable, and
–if remaining as it is– will end up endangering
the very political survival of the Eurozone.
Furthermore, it is unthinkable to develop new
EMU instruments and to deepen governance
processes without democratic progress. Stronger
democratic legitimacy is equally indispensable in
order to strengthen the effectiveness of policy
implementation on the ground, especially with
regard to structural reforms. However, this does
not require new institutions, especially at parlia-
mentary level, but should be facilitated through
the realisation of EMU membership for all
Member States legally committed to joining
within a clear and transparent timetable, and
beyond.
EMU policy coordination should, in future,
be democratically legitimised throughout the
European Semester process:
– The Commission’s Annual Growth Survey
(AGS) should be presented at the start of the
Semester jointly with the Integrated
Guidelines (IG) on economic and employ-
ment policies. This EU-wide policy package,
which sets the focus for national reform pro-
grammes and provides basis for Country-
Specific Recommendations (CSRs), can only
be made democratically fully legitimate at
European level through the co-decision pro-
cedure, involving both the European
Parliament and the Council on an equal
footing. However, this requires a Treaty
change, and can therefore not be achieved
at present. Therefore, the three European
institutions should without delay agree an
Inter-Institutional Agreement on Improved
Socio-Economic Governance, notably in or-
der to ensure the due respect of Parliament’s
political views on the AGS/IG package. The
call for an Inter-Institutional Agreement has
been reiterated in the Parliament’s resolution
on the 2016 Annual Growth Survey
(Rodrigues report). The Parliament held a
plenary debate on the priorities of the
Annual Growth Survey 2016 on 11
November 2015, two weeks before the AGS
was adopted by the Commission. Another
important change in the “revamped” struc-
ture of the European Semester was that the
Commission tabled its draft
recommenda-
tion on the economic policy of the euro
area
already in November 2016, together
with the AGS. The Parliament discussed this
recommendation with the President of the
Commission and the President of the
Eurogroup in a plenary debate on 16
December 2015, before the draft recom-
mendation was approved by the Council and
endorsed by the European Council.
– Powerful additional democratic legitimacy
must also be achieved at national level. All
national governments should ensure that
their National Reform Programme and
Stability and Convergence Programme are
duly debated, amended and adopted by
their National Parliament according to ap-
propriate national procedures. The
Commission’s Country Reports should also